CRM Success Tips Blog

When implementing a CRM, a number of challenges can arise that hinder its success. In fact, respected researchers suggest that up to 70% of CRM implementations may fail to meet expectations. Despite these high failure rates, it’s possible to position yourself and your organization for CRM success by identifying and preparing for some of the most common CRM implementation challenges. If you haven\'t already read The Top 10 Most Common CRM Challenges - Part 1, check that post out for a discussion of some of the challenges that arise when an organization doesn’t have a strategy or plan in place or has a lack of focus. Here are a couple more: CRM

Chris Fritsch, Founder & CRM Success Consultant for CLIENTSFirst Consulting, and Stefanie Marrone, Founder of Stefanie Marrone Legal Marketing Consulting | The Social Media Butterfly, recently presented a webinar on their experiences with creating and managing alumni relations programs, alumni data management strategies and how technology has evolved to help lawyers and law firm business professionals track alumni and other data. It doesn’t matter how big or small your firm is, if you have employees who have left that you want to keep in touch with, you should consider an alumni relations program. Yet many firms aren’t investing in creating these programs or the programs they have may not have yielded real ROI… yet. Benefits of

When implementing a CRM, a number of challenges can arise that hinder CRM success. In fact, respected researchers suggest that up to 70% of CRM implementations may fail to meet expectations. Despite these high failure rates, it’s possible to position yourself and your organization for CRM success by identifying and preparing for some of the most common CRM implementation challenges. Based on more than 15 years of consulting experience and working with hundreds of top law firms to successfully implement CRMs, here are the 10 most common challenges the CLIENTSFirst Consulting team sees when organizations implement a CRM, along with a few solutions and best practices we recommend to overcome them: CRM

In this spooky season of vampires, witches and scary clowns, we’d like to add one more to the mix – data quality nightmares – which can be more frightful than a marathon of Freddy Kreuger movies to some of us. We need data about our clients and prospects in order to create strategic programs that can lead to new business and increased visibility, but maintaining that data on an ongoing basis can quickly turn into a nightmare without the right resources. Having good quality data is important for success in so many areas of your organization, including: Communicating effectively with core constituencies Successfully planning and executing events Segmenting your target markets, clients

As organizations increasingly use data and analytics to help make business decisions and base their strategies on the insights gathered from them, ensuring that you have reliable data is imperative. Yet, some firms still don\'t see why data quality is so important. Marketing departments in B2B organizations are facing a data deluge with high volumes of information coming from diverse, disparate systems and sources such as CRMs, eMarketing and marketing automation platforms, social media platforms, financial systems and others. And when it comes to marketing activities, good data is essential because bad data leads to bad marketing outcomes. There are also a number of other reasons why data quality should be at

We may seem like those crazy neighbors at the end of the block who are already putting up the colored lights and inflatables for the holidays weeks before Halloween, but if you are tasked with your firm’s holiday card list, keep reading – you’ll be glad you did.   Whether your firm sends holiday greetings electronically or mails traditional paper cards, a great deal of effort and preparation (and time) goes into the process: from choosing the format and design, ensuring people don\'t get duplicates, deciding whether to include a gift or maybe a charitable donation and getting people to sign and/and or send it, the whole time-consuming process is enough to make

Bad CRM data can compound exponentially, impacting marketing and business development. It’s essential to understand the scope of  your data problems and follow a plan for regular data cleaning.   Have you ever heard the saying, “No man ever steps into the same river twice”? Because a river’s water is constantly flowing and changing, the water you step in today will be different from yesterday. The same is true for the data in your CRM system: people are constantly changing roles, relocating, retiring; companies are opening, closing, moving and merging. On top of that, new data isn\'t always entered correctly. As a result, a database with clean, correct information today will not necessarily

A successful CRM implementation is not necessarily easy. But not everyone gets that. In fact, sometimes it seems that organizations think you can just buy a CRM system, plug it in and turn it on and clients will line up at the office door with bags of money. In fact, compared to other technology deployments, CRM implementations can require more effort because you have to get users to actually use the system (ok, I’m a glass-half-full kind of person so just let me dream). And although the ultimate goal of CRM is to make things easier, some initial work is required. In addition, failed CRM investments (and there are a LOT of

As law and other professional services firms today struggle with staffing issues due to the ‘Great Resignation’ and deal with employees working from home and/or hybrid, it’s no wonder that outsourcing has been increasing almost exponentially over the last few years. Additionally, if prior trends are an indicator, outsourcing is likely to increase significantly if we enter a recession – and with good reason: Outsourcing is a cost-effective solution that provides firms flexibility and the ability to tap into resources with experience and expertise when there are challenges finding candidates with the requisite experience, or when tight budgets prevent hiring full-time or part-time internal staff. As an additional benefit, outsourced staffing often